The Concorde: Airport 1979

The
models on this page were all used in the filming of the visual effects
sequences seen in the last movie of the "Airport" series. The VFX were
shot at Universal's Hartland facility, and four of the original
models are shown here below. All the models were shot using the
blue-screen travelling matte technique so common at the time, and the
task was made all the more difficult by having to film relatively
familiar subjects (aircraft that exist in real life) and matte them
into bright sky environments.

Video captures of scenes from the film follow the pictures of the
models showing how they looked on screen.

Concorde

The
Concorde is a model about four feet long, made of fiberglass with
scribed panel lines and fine detailing, and is surprizingly
heavy. The model is actually painted with a flat yellow finish
designed to counteract unwanted reflections in the blue-screen filming
process during flight sequences. The yellow paint was "dialed out"
during colour correction processing and made to appear white in the
final film. It has a full metal armature allowing the model to be
mounted from the top, bottom, sides back and front. The hatch on the
bottom is shown missing, the side mounts are visible by observing the
slightly raised sections on the wings (the model is thirty years old
after all!) and the nosecone and tailcone are removable as well to
allow the motion control "model mover" rig to plug into the tail.

The
video captiures below show some of the scenes where this model was used.

Note the shot in the top lright corner which betrays the tail mount as
a thick cylinder at the rear.

McDonnell Douglas F-4
Phantom

Below we have a couple of F-4 Phantom models that were also used in the
blue-screen process. The models are about two feet long and have steel
armatures and a fiberglass shell. The grey one was meant to be an
enemy fighter sent to shoot down the concorde. The orange one
represented the "Harrison Industries unmanned drone" that was
seen at the start of the film as target practice.

The second picture shows how the model was prepared for filming. Note
the removed hatches, held on with magnets, to allow the insertion of
rods for the model mover. Note the nosecone could also be
replaced with one that allowed the rod to be inserted from the front.
The grey one had a vacuformed gloss white canopy made to help show the
canopy "glass" reflections in the film. The model's "beauty passes"
were shot without the canopy bubble in place against and the bright
blue-screen backing. Clear parts are not used during this pass to avoid
unwanted reflections called "blue spill". Then, in a separate motion
control pass, the mminiature was covered entirely in black fabric and
the white canopy in place. The blue screen was substituted with black
backing so that the only thing that registers in the pass is the canopy
reflection. When the two images were superimposed together, the canopy
glass would appear to be in place as shown in the videocaptures from
the film below. That kind of work was not possible before motion
control systems, which allow frame-by-frame repeatable camera and model
moves had been developed.

Dassault-Breguet Mirage
F-1

Seen
only fleetingly in the film, this model of the French-built fighter is
about three feet long and represented a pair of Italian fighters sent
to destroy the enemy terrorists trying to shoot down the Concorde in
the film. Although the model's screen time was severely limited, it is
nonetheless a very beautifully detailed model and in near perfect
condition after all these years. As with the grey Phantom above,
this model was shot without any canopy bubble in place, and the
reflection of the canopy was added in a separate motion control pass.

Models
photographed and processed exclusively for Battlebuck.com by E.
James Small, www.smallartworks.ca